Vitae
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Contact Information
2215 Snedecor Hall, Department of Statistics, Iowa State University, Ames, 50011, IA
Email: xie@yihui.name; Tel: (+1) 515-203-2465 Homepage: http://yihui.name
Research Interest
Statistical computing and graphics / data visualization
Education Background
- 2009 ~ Now, PhD student in the Department of Statistics, Iowa State University
- 2006 ~ 2009, Master of statistics, School of Statistics, Renmin University of China
- 2002 ~ 2006, Bachelor of Economics, School of Statistics, Renmin University of China
Honors & Awards
- Honorable Mention Prize, Applications of R in Business Competition, 2012
- Vince Sposito Statistical Computing Award, 2011 (Department of Statistics, Iowa State University)
- John M. Chambers Statistical Software Award, 2009 (for the R package “
animation“) - Excellent graduate scholarship, Renmin University of China, 2007
Successful Participant, Mathematical Contest in Modeling (America), 2006 (paper & certificate)- Excellent graduate of Renmin University of China, 2006
- “Excellent Worker in Student Media” of Renmin University of China, 2006 (for hosting the website of statistics discussions in http://cos.name)
- Scholarship for outstanding learning, Renmin University of China, 2005
Publications
In Chinese
- Yanyun Zhao, Nailin Feng, Yuncheng Zhao, Yihui Xie, Ning Xiao, 2008, Research on the National Quality Competitiveness of China, Statistical Research, 25(3), 12-19
- Yihui Xie, 2008. On the Applications of Statistical Graphics in Data Analysis, Statistical Review, Bo Zhang (ed)
- Yihui Xie, 2008. Bootstrap Methods: Developments and Frontiers, Statistics & Information Forum, 89, 90-96.
- Yihui Xie, 2007. The Application of the Classification and Regression Tree Based on the Package rpart in R, Statistics & Information Forum, 86, 67-70.
- Yihui Xie, 2007. Series in International Competitiveness: How Weak is the Financial System of China?, China Statistics, 7, 35.
- Yanyun Zhao, Yihui Xie, 2006. Unbalanced growth in top 100 industrial enterprises in China: market expanding outgoes business managing, Talents, 9, 84.
- Yanyun Zhao, Yihui Xie, 2005. Who is the champion of growth among top 1000 industrial enterprises in China: analysis on the capability of market expanding and aggregate efficiency, Talents, 9, 72-73.
In English
- Yihui Xie, 201?, animation: An R Package for Creating Animations and Demonstrating Statistical Methods, Journal of Statistical Software (under review)
- Yihui Xie and Xiaoyue Cheng, 2008. animation: A Package for Statistical Animations, R News, 8(2). URL: http://www.r-project.org/doc/Rnews/Rnews_2008-1.pdf
- Yihui Xie, 2007. Visualization of Data and Statistical Models Using R, Proceedings of the 3rd Conference on Australia-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA): Econometric Modeling and Policy in Trade, Investment and Economic Integration (paper)
Besides, I published several articles in the “Capital of Statistics” in Chinese.
Professional Experience
Web Construction and Management
Sept 2003 – Now
I’ve made and been maintaining web pages for:
- The School of Statistics, Renmin University of China (Sept 2003 – Jun 2009)
- The Center for Applied Statistics, Renmin University of China (Apr 2004 – Jun 2009)
- The Center for Risk Management and Actuarial Studies (Jun 2004 – Apr 2006); Data Mining Center of Renmin University of China (Jul 2004 – Apr 2006), etc
- The “Great Expectation Society”, a student society in Renmin University (Mar 2005 – Jul 2006)
I’ve built and been hosting this web forum:
- “Capital of Statistics” for web discussion of statistics (both Chinese and English) (May 2006 – now)
I’ve been working in these web studios:
- The English web studio of Renmin University of China (for the construction of English website of the university) (Sept 2006 – Jun 2009)
- The web club of the School of Statistics (as the founder & leader) (Apr 2006 – 2008)
My own projects:
- AniWiki: Animations in Statistics (http://animation.yihui.name)
- knitr: Elegant, flexible and fast dynamic report generation with R (http://yihui.github.com/knitr)
Conferences Organization
Feb 2005 – Now
I organized
- the 1st Chinese R conference (in Beijing), Dec 13~14, 2008
and I helped organize these conferences:
- the 3rd Chinese R conference (Beijing), Jun 12~13, 2010
- the 2nd Chinese R conference (Beijing & Shanghai), December 2009
- Second Conference on Micro Evidence on Innovation in Developing Economies, April 22 ~ 23, 2008 (an international conference; I was also the Chair for the last session on April 22)
- 2nd Conference on Australia-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA): Econometric Modeling and Policy in Trade, Investment and Economic Integration, April 17th ~ 18th, 2006
- 15th International Conference on Input-Output Techniques, June 27th ~ July 1st, 2005
- Data Mining and Business Intelligence Conference 2006
- International Statistics Forum 2006
Statistical Consulting
May 2005 – Now
I offer statistical consulting by email and I have been answering questions in the “Capital of Statistics” almost every day. I’m happy to see these topics:
- data analysis and visualization
- theoretical problems without measure theory
- linear models, generalized linear models and nonlinear models
- R packages that I maintain (other questions on R should go to R-help or StackOverflow)
- statistics in other disciplines (e.g. biology) in which I can also learn something from you
- real world data mining
- simulation
- teaching
I will ignore any questions on Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and factor analysis, as I do not believe their usefulness at all. I know little about time series and do not like econometrics.
Other Work Experience
Sep 2004 – present
Duties in Associations & Centers:
- Column editor of the ICSA bulletin for its R column (2012)
- Webmaster of the Center for Applied Statistics, Renmin University of China (2004 – 2009)
- Vice-chairman of the “Great Expectation Society” (a student association, Apr 2005 – Jul 2006)
Projects Participated:
- Translation of “R for beginners” (by Emmanuel Paradis) (Co-operated with some colleagues to finish the translation) (Nov 2005 – Feb 2006);
- Performance Evaluation of Taxation Management of the China Customs (designed several R programs for sampling databases using R) (Sept 2006 – Jun 2009);
- Important Projects in Social Science of the Ministry of Education: Research on the Industry Competitiveness of China (Apr 2007 – May 2007);
- A research project on statistical quality control co-operated with China National Research Institute of Food and Fermentation Industries, National Standardization Centre of Food & Fermentation Industry, P.R.C.; R (D)COM was used in developing programs (May 2007 – Jun 2009)
- Cooperative project with the Office of 1% Population Sampling Survey of the State Department: Research on the National Population Competitiveness of China (Jun 2007 – Nov 2007, report finished)
Presentations & Lectures
- Yihui Xie, 2011, How I See Bootstrap, Tests and KDE, Stat546 presentation at ISU (slides)
- Yihui Xie, 2011, An Introduction to R, tutorial workshops in the Econ department of ISU (slides)
- Yihui Xie, 2011,
cranvas: Interactive Statistical Graphics in R via Qt, AT&T Research Labs, New Jersey (slides) - Yihui Xie, 2011, Interactive Parallel Coordinates Plot Based on Qt, Joint Statistical Meetings at Miami Beach, Florida (slides; R code)
- Yihui Xie, 2011, New Features and Enhancements of the
animationPackage, ISU Graphics Working Group (slides) - Yihui Xie, 2010, LaTeX and Sweave without Tears, ISU Graphics Working Group (slides; demo; LyX source of slides; configuration script)
- Yihui Xie, 2010, Creating Animations with R, the useR! 2010 conference at NIST, Gaithersburg, MD (slides; R code)
- Yihui Xie, 2010, Creating GUI with the gWidgets package, the 3rd Chinese R conference, Beijing (slides in Chinese; R code)
- Yihui Xie, 2010, Modern Statistical Graphics, tutorial lecture on the 3rd Chinese R conference, Beijing (slides in Chinese)
- Yihui Xie, 2009, Creating R Packages, Working Group in Statistical Computing and Computationally-intensive Statistical Methods, Department of Statistics, ISU (slides; C code)
- Yihui Xie, 2009, R in Stat500: Demonstration, Computing, and Graphics (with An Introduction to the R Package ISU.Stat500), RTG Seminar, Department of Statistics, ISU (slides)
- Yihui Xie, 2009, Turning Statistical Ideas into Animations, VIGRE Graphics Seminar, Department of Statistics, ISU (slides; R code and graphs)
- Yihui Xie, 2009, Reproducible Research and An Introduction to LaTeX, R and Sweave, a report for PhD students in the School of Statistics, RUC (slides in Chinese)
- Yihui Xie, 2008, (1) The History of R Language and Current Developments (slides) (2) animation: An R Package for Statistical Animations with Applications in Teaching and Data Analysis (slides) (3) Explore Irregular Data with R (slides, R code), the 1st Chinese R Conference, Beijing, 2008.12.13~14 (introduction to the conference, R code)
- Yihui Xie, 2008, Tutorial Lectures on R Basics, a four-day tutorial lecture series given at the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences (slides in Chinese: 1, 2, 3, 4; and a document for the lectures)
- Yihui Xie, 2008, See? (escaping the math world via animations…), a talk in the School of Statistics, Renmin University of China (slides; Flash demos)
- Yihui Xie, 2008, Statistical Animations Using R, useR! 2008 in Dortmund (abstract; slides; demos; slides in PDF)
- Yihui Xie, 2008, Computer Animations for Demonstrating Statistical Procedures: Methods and Implementations, a talk at the workshop “Statistical Graphics: Data and Information Visualization in Today’s Multimedia Society (Data Viz VI)” in Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany (slides; demos and other materials)
- Yihui Xie, 2008, The Influence of Population Quality Competitiveness to Regional Innovation: the China Case, a presentation at the 2nd MEIDE conference (slides; demos and graphs)
- Yihui Xie, 2008, A Training Course on EViews and Examples in Macroeconomic Statistics, a lecture in the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of People’s Republic of China (slides in Chinese)
- Yihui Xie, 2007, Animation in Statistics: Dynamic Graphics for Statistical Models and Practical Applications, an invited talk in the 2nd postgraduate forum on statistics for universities in Beijing (slides; demos for animations)
- Yihui Xie, 2007, Classification Tree Ensembles with Applications to the Prognostic Analysis of Cerebral Infarction, a report in “The Seminar for the Statistical Methods in Clinical Research” held in Renmin University of China (slides in Chinese ; demos for some machine learning techiques)
- Yihui Xie, 2007, Jokes in Statistics, an invited lecture in the Capital University of Economics and Business (slides)
- Yihui Xie, 2007, A Leisure Look on Some Tools for Statistics, an invited lecture in the Capital University of Economics and Business (slides in Chinese; R code)
- Yihui Xie, 2007, Bootstrap Methods: A Review, a report in the class of “Frontiers in Statistics” (slides)
- Yihui Xie, 2007, An Introduction to Support Vector Machine and Implementation in R, an article for a presentation of the class “Data Mining and Machine Learning” (slides)
- Yihui Xie, 2007, A Framework for Statistical Programming and An Introduction to Basic Statistical Analysis Using R, a lecture given to the members of the “Capital of Statistics” (slides in Chinese)
- Yihui Xie, 2007, A Brief Introduction to Java, a lecture in the School of Statistics (slides)
- Yihui Xie, 2007, A Guide to Stata, a lecture in People’s Bank of China (slides in Chinese)
- Yihui Xie, 2007, Visualization of Data and Statistical Models Using R, 3rd Conference on Australia-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA): Econometric Modeling and Policy in Trade, Investment and Economic Integration (paper; slides)
- Yihui Xie, 2006, Thoughts of Statistics, an invited talk in the 1st postgraduate forum on statistics for universities in Beijing (slides)
- Yihui Xie, 2006, Typesetting and LATEX, a lecture in the School of Statistics (slides)
- Yihui Xie, 2006, Statistical Programming & R Basics, a lecture in the School of Statistics (slides)
- Yihui Xie, 2006, An Introduction to Structural Equation Modeling, A small seminar on SEM in Renmin University (slides)
- Yanyun Zhao, Guirong Li, Xuanxuan Chen, Yihui Xie, 2006, The Industrial Structure and Foreign Investment Introduction Policy in Shanghai and Its Adjacency, 2nd Conference on Australia-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA): Econometric Modeling and Policy in Trade, Investment and Economic Integration (slides)
Computer Skills
I’m good at computer tools for building web pages and statistical modeling, programming & computation
- Statistical Packages: R, OpenBUGS (
S-Plus, SPSS, Eviews, SAS, MatLab, STATA, AMOS and LISREL) - Languages: R,
Visual Basic (also VBA & VBScript), HTML,ASP (years ago), PHP, SQL, JavaScript, a little knowledge about Python, C and Java - Applications: LATEX, databases (MS Access, MySQL), SVN and GIT
- Operating Systems: 90% GNU Linux (Ubuntu); 10% Windows
I’ve never participated in any exams such as Nationwide Computer Level Test, but I have always been repairing PCs for those who have passed these exams and solving problems in their programming. Besides, I like to improve the efficiency of my work with the aid of programming.
Software Packages
I have finished / am still writing these packages:
- WordPress plugin “UTF-8 DB Converter” (June 2009, finished)
- Dokuwiki plugin “
animation” to insert animations into wiki pages; written in PHP and JavaScript (Jun 2008, finished) - R package “
animation” which has provided several animation demonstrations for statistical theories and data analysis; published in CRAN and being updated (Nov 2007 – now) - R package knitr as an alternative to Sweave
- R packages formatR, Rd2roxygen, R2SWF, MSG, iBUGS, fun, …
- R package cranvas as the next generation of GGobi
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